The Spirit of an Activist chronicles the life and distinguished
career of Isaiah DeQuincey Newman (1911-1985), a Protestant pastor,
civil rights leader, and South Carolina statesman. Known as a
tenacious advocate for racial equality, Newman was also renowned
for his diplomatic skills when working with opponents and his
advocacy of nonviolent protest over confrontation. His leadership
and dedication to peaceful change played an important role in the
dismantling of segregation in South Carolina. The thirteen
narratives in this volume by such diverse contributors as Richard
W. Riley, William Saunders, Esther Nell Witherspoon, and Donald L.
Fowler attest to Newman's impact on South Carolina.
Editor Sadye L. M. Logan orchestrates these many contributions into
an informative, moving, and sometimes passionate collage of
Newman's challenges, triumphs, and small and significant everyday
acts of courage.
Through this collection Logan takes the reader on an extraordinary
journey from Newman's childhood in Darlington County, South
Carolina, to his death at the age of seventy-four. Along that
journey Newman led the state's African Americans to join the
Democratic Party and was a delegate to several Democratic
Presidential Conventions. In 1983 he became the first African
American South Carolinian elected to the State Senate in nearly a
century. The Spirit of an Activist is essentially biographical, but
it uses a diverse chorus of voices to capture Newman's rich and
varied contributions in transforming South Carolina's rigid and
unjust social systems. His quiet dignity and appeals to reason won
him the confidence, and ultimately the support, of key white
political and economic leaders. In effect Newman served both as
chief strategist for the protest movement and as chief negotiator
at the conference table, becoming the "unofficial liaison" between
South Carolina's African American citizens and the state's white
power structure.
In the years that followed formal desegregation, Newman remained
active in politics and became a trusted confidant of state leaders,
many of whom are featured in this volume. The Spirit of an Activist
includes a foreword by attorney and civil rights activist Vernon E.
Jordan, Jr., and a prologue by South Carolina congressman James E.
Clyburn, both personal friends of Newman who worked with him during
the civil rights struggle.
Contributors
Gloria Blackwell (Rackley)
Tanya S. Brice
Millicent E. Brown
Wallace Brown, Sr.
James E. Clyburn
G. Robert Cook
Carrie Crawford Washington
Donald L. Fowler
Karen Ross Grant
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
Sadye L. M. Logan
Robert E. McNair
Josephine A. McRant
Jerome Noble
Matthew J. Perry, Jr.
Harrison Reardon
Richard W. Riley
Wim Roefs
Alex Sanders
William "Bill" Saunders
Hiram Spain, Jr.
James S. Thomas
Isaac "Ike" W. Williams
Esther Nell Knuckles Glymph Witherspoon
General
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